No Quick Fix for Social Security System

Politicians, both Republican and Democrat, are loath to suggest raising it -- or to make other difficult decisions, such as lowering benefits or pushing full retirement ages out even later -- that would prevent a demographic meltdown.

But creating a program of private accounts that carve out 2%-6% of Social Security contributions, say critics, is like asking for a meltdown on speed.

If enough money is sidelined into private accounts and not flowing into Social Security coffers, the pay-as-you-go approach begins to suffer. At some point, perhaps before the end of this decade, there wouldn't be enough money coming in to pay benefits for current retirees.

There would be a gap between the old way of doing business and the new way, or a transition cost. That number has been pegged at $1 trillion to $2 trillion, not an amount the Treasury seems to have lying about these days.

"What that does," says Certner, "is make Social Security's solvency problem even worse."

Plans to siphon money away from the system through private accounts are not about finding ways to preserve Social Security, as the 1983 Greenspan Commission did, says Certner. "We're talking about structure, some would say ideology."

Indeed, private accounts have a great deal to do with Bush's election theme of wanting to create an "ownership society," a rather fuzzy place of the capitalist mind. It's a place where taxes are lower for those who own investments than for those who work and where mostly affluent individuals are encouraged to take control of their health costs by owning a health savings account rather than relying on workplace health plans.

One of the more puzzling aspects of Bush's pursuit of private accounts is that he is encouraging the workers to claim "ownership" of their Social Security benefits, something that generations of Americans have already counted on. Such benefits have long been referred to in Washington by the derogatory term "entitlements."